The Best Of Musikmesse, The 2012 MIPA Awards

Musikmesse 2012: For the 13th time, representatives from more than 100 magazines, from all over the world, have gathered at Musikmesse to select their picks for the best musical instruments and audio equipment of the last year.

The Musikmesse International Press Award (MIPA) were awarded at a ceremony held Thursday, March 22nd, 2012.

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23 thoughts on “The Best Of Musikmesse, The 2012 MIPA Awards”

What, Roland jupiter 80 best hardware sintheziser, what are they thinking? There are a lot of reviews everywhere on youtube, on this site, saying that it is not a good one, myself i havent seen anything good on this that surprise me, not a single sound or patch, may be it has a lot of tools to make a performance, i dont know but, not the best synthesizer, Roland probably give candies to all judges to get it jajaja.

Ok i understand, lets renamed the Jupiter 80 now, lets call it, Roland Moonshine 80 Virtual Analog Synthesizer, jaja, by the way a little overpriced, 3500 today. The good reviews on this machine are most on the controller side, not the sound engine. Its looks like a workstation that i havent seen in any live performance on any group so far maybe never.

I recommend checking out the link and looking at the awards list. Some of the catagories are interesting lists. For instance, the synth hardware list was only three devices:

Arturia MiniBrute
Moog Minitaur
Roland Jupiter-80

And, of the three, let’s face it, the Jupiter-80 does win.

One point seems to stand out looking at all the categories: Either the “iOS” revolution isn’t as big as some people believe or the Euro-weenies just haven’t recognized it because tablets hardly get mentioned in any of the lists, let alone the winner. For instance, Native Instruments Maschine beat out the iPad in that category.

It’s an interesting list, the complete one. I bet in a couple of years the whole look of the lists will change, with small, more high-tech devices pushing aside the big, dedicated high-tech devices.

I completely disagree about whether the Jup80 wins over the Minitaur or the Minibrute. To me the Minibrute is way more exciting of a synth than the Jup is. To each their own I guess, but I’d be willing to bet a lot of people agree with me on that count.

I see your point, and I think the Minibrute is an exciting product. In fact, me personally, if someone offered me right this second either a Jupiter or a Minibrute I would probably take the Minibrute. But this of the scope here out there in the real world. The Jupiter-80 is going to be used in everything from live performances to film scores and everything in between. The Minibrute probably will just be purchased by hobbyists playing around with sounds.

More practically, I am so excited by the Teenage Engineering OP-1 that Monday I will probably go to my bank and move around some funds so that I can buy one. But I can separate my own personal excitement from the larger world. I mean, a lot of people don’t care for the OP-1 at all and see it as a bundle of limitations.

It’s just the bigger world thing. The Jupiter-80 provides a lot more answers to a lot more people in the real world than an exiting product like the Minibrute. At least, that’s how I’m looking at this.

The price tag difference alone is going to insure that a heck of a lot more stages are going to be crowded out with Minibrutes than Jupiter80s. All you have to do is take a look at the ubiquitous MicroKorg to realize that. There’s no doubt Arturia’s going to make bank on these guys, barring some unforeseen issues with build quality or something. And with all that it’s bringing to the table, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up on a soundtrack or two either…wonder how many Trent Reznor’s got pre-ordered? 😉

I think awards like this are totally boring. It’s just a way for the big players in the market ti get some PR and self-clap on their shoulders telling themselves how good they are. It’s like the oscars, PR-self-masturbation. So now let’s get back to the exiting things.

i disagree with the akai max49, cause it looks extremely cheap made, including the red color
and with the synth because minibrute and minotaur are way more exciting for me than the jupiter.

and like someone allready said, those awards seem more like a system to feature major players, so that the small companies dont get to much publicity even if the fans like them more.

so all of these companes that got an award can put the sticker on their packages, and salesmen got an argument because “you know it won an award at the musikmesse, and you know how tough the german TÜV” haha

Come on guys ! Did you ever believe that this kind of contest was a fair process ? This is just a very classical marketing operation, paid by some companies with decent deep pockets. Once you know who has to “win”, you fill the categories with whatever other stuff you want to build the product feast. Then your contest is go for the show.

Cats like Vincent are so strange. People hate in the Jupiter because that’s a hip thing to do.

In PRACTICAL terms it’s a sound scoping tool the likes I have never had. I do sound design and composition for a living. I’ve owned the jp 80 for six months and have used it on numerous projects already.

U need to get on a piece gear and actually use it to have an opinion, in my opinion. Or u can just be a hater like jaja binks Vincent

Agreed. Really, if you are going to purchase gear, especially if your future income rely’s on the use of that gear, you have to purchase an item that is going to give you a lot of mileage. On another article here, there’s a two-voice synth going for $4000, tiny keyboard, the sort of thing people hear wank to. But to be frank, a business man just isn’t going to invest in something like that. If you’re a studio musician, for the same price, you are going to buy a computer, good audio interface, a DAW, some good effects plugins, then probably something like Omnisphere, which gives you a ton of mileage for a very reasonable amount of money (point being, there’s a lot of high quality gear that gives you much more flexibility). If you’re a performer, maybe you’re getting something like the Jupiter-80, the Kronos, a Nord product, etc. Companies like Roland understand that, so they don’t make boutique items directed at enthusiasts; they make products that are going to get much more use by many more people.

The MiniBrute will sell an absurd amount more units than the Jupiter80 ever will. So what do we define “best” by? Sales? Capability? Innovation? Looking at the award list, I think the judges gave awards based on what they expected to be the best, based on standards that were set 20 or more years ago.

This is so correct. After I did my post above, where I talked about pros using the Jupiter and hobbyists using the Minibrute, I went away and asked myself what the hell did I just type? There are vastly more “hobbyists” (as I called private people using machines at home) than there are employees of corporations or guys working in bars to help sell drinks (“pros”) and I wondered why did I take it for granted that “pros” count for more, means more in some bigger picture, than what people do at home as individuals.

Anyway, so I think you are correct and although it is clear the Jupiter and Minibrute are targeted to different groups of people, it isn’t clear to me any more if one group is more “serious” and “real” than the other. If anything, I’d rather my brain would automatically give more respect to the people at home doing what they love, rather than the corporate employees make a day-job out of music. But this is an interesting and complicated thing to think about.